


Everything Falls Down

by lordavon



Series: I'd Rather Hurt Than Live Without You [8]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, spiderpool - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Buried Alive, Cable is a good bro, Insanity, M/M, Miscommunication, Suicide, Suicide Pact, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21636451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordavon/pseuds/lordavon
Summary: Wade and Peter's relationship takes a bad turn, and Cable gets angry over it.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Series: I'd Rather Hurt Than Live Without You [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1462909
Comments: 22
Kudos: 84





	Everything Falls Down

“You look like you died, Tiger.” MJ tossed several shopping bags and her purse into the booth and slid in next to them, across from where Peter lounged. He pushed a latte at her.

“I haven’t had coffee yet,” he said, taking a drink from his own cup.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s three in the afternoon. Try again.”

“I was up all night studying and then spent all day in a lab?”

She hummed thoughtfully. “More likely.” 

“I’ll go with that, then.”

MJ leaned her elbows on the table. “Okay, spill. I’m in town for about three days before I’m off to another shoot. Friend time is limited and not to be squandered.”

His eyes darted from her to her bags. “Is it going to involve more shopping? Because I don’t know.”

“Peter.” He looked back at her, slumping a little further into the seat.

“Yes?”

“Why do you look half-dead?”

He rubbed his face. “Well, I really did spend most of the night studying and then the morning in the lab.”

“But…” she prompted.

Peter sank even lower. “I’m – Wade – wants to know about Gwen.”

She paused, and picked up her latte to hide her reaction. “Let me guess,” she said, her tone just a touch too much forced easiness, “You don’t know how to even start.” He nodded at her. “Peter, have you ever talked to anyone about Gwen?”

His breath caught in his throat and he coughed, straightening up in the booth. “No,” he finally managed to say. “Well, Aunt May. A little. You, a little. But…no.”

Her eyes softened. “Do you trust him? I mean, I know you are living with him. But do you trust him?”

His thoughts flashed to the papers tacked on the wall of their apartment. The trust comments, Peter’s inability to talk of love, and Gwen’s name were the only ones they hadn’t crossed off. “I—usually. Mostly. But—trust is hard.” Peter sighed. “I trust him more than I want to, less than he probably deserves, and probably less than I should, but more than I would have thought possible.” He wished he hadn’t accepted her offer to meet up, even though he’d desperately needed someone to talk to about this. He couldn’t talk to Aunt May about his relationship with Wade; she was more fragile than he liked and he didn’t want to stress her. “Maybe more than I should, too, if that makes any sense.

She stared at him. “Yes or no was too hard?”

“Maybe?”

She threw a napkin at him, grinning a little before she turned serious. “You’ve been dating him over a year, Peter. You’re living with him. You might want to figure that out.”

“I know!” MJ’s eyebrows raised at his outburst and he looked sheepish. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to - “ Peter trailed off, taking a deep breath. “I know. We’re working on it.”

“I guess that’s all anyone does… But Peter, I don’t like that you don’t look like you’re taking care of yourself.”

He flashed to Cable, checking if he was eating, and he chuckled. “I promise I’m eating, MJ. It really is school. I had no idea how much was really involved in a doctorate and I’m older than the kids fresh from undergrad working on graduate degrees or with their Masters. I mean, I’m keeping up, but it’s a harder adjustment from working full-time to school full-time than I thought it would be.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t even imagine trying to do this if I was working full-time still.”

She relaxed. “You aren’t that old, Peter,” she said, eyes twinkling. 

“Hmph.”

“Just, try to relax a little, okay?”

He nodded, brushing hair out of his eyes as it fell forward. “I’m trying. I’m here, right?”

“Do you love him? Wade?” MJ frowned as Peter twitched in the seat, looking away from her. “Peter!” she said, leaning forward on the table. 

“I – we haven’t said…that…to each other.” He looked back at her.

A shadow passed through her expression. “You both haven’t, or just you?”

Peter bit back a growl. “Dammit, MJ, stop – stop knowing me so well.”

She started to settle her bags. “I’m just saying there are reasons we broke up, Peter.” Her smile was tinged with old sadness. “Can you try making new mistakes with Wade and not just repeat the previous ones?”

He realized he’d clenched his hands into fists, and intentionally relaxed them. Took another breath. “MJ, it’s complicated.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Just talk to him. You must have said something if he knows who Gwen is – or, he’s found out. But if he’s asking, then he wants to know and wants you to tell him.” She sighed, standing up. “And if you can’t, then you should leave him. If you can’t talk about things that upset you, that hurt you, you aren’t being fair to him. Or you.” She looked down at the table.

“MJ…” He trailed off, not sure what he wanted to say. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well, that didn’t solve anything for us, either.” She gave herself a shake, and picked up her bags, holding them out for him. “However, as proof of your sincerity I shall allow you to carry my things while I continue shopping.”

Slowly, he took the bags from her. “If that’s what it takes,” he said, trying to match her attempt at a lighter tone.

“Good. Now…” She gave him a look. “Why are you wearing a collar with a Deadpool tag on it?”

He felt his face turn bright scarlet, and her eyebrows rose again. “Well. I guess there’s more than one reason we broke up. Interesting.”

“MJ!” 

“I’m just saying…”

He tossed their empty cups in the trash as they left the coffee shop. “Can we please not talk about this?”

“Oh, Tiger, we are definitely talking about this.”

**

“I killed her,” he blurted out over a bowl of cereal several weeks later.

Wade put a mug of coffee in front of Peter and sat down at their small kitchen table. “You what?”

Peter gulped in a breath of air. “I killed Gwen.”

Wade’s eyes flicked to look at the papers tacked up on the wall. Carefully, he took a bite of his pancakes. Swallowed. “That seems out of character for you, Pet,” he said carefully.

“We were on top of the Brooklyn Bridge,” Peter said, staring into his cereal. “The Green Goblin… The Green Goblin had kidnapped her. She was in shock, unconscious. I…” He pushed his spoon around his cereal bowl, appetite gone. This was harder to talk about than he thought it would be. He glanced up at Wade from under his bangs, and his tension faded as he saw Wade simply listening, nothing judgmental in his expression. “I had just reached her and the Goblin knocked her off. I tried—” he cut off, his breath tight, and wrapped his arms around himself. “I – fuck.”

“Pet, if you can’t talk about it, it’s okay.”

He looked at Wade, feeling lost when all he saw was concern for him. “I want to, I just – I don’t know how to say the words.”

Wade left his seat to circle the table and hug Peter. “Say them wrong then.”

He wanted to relax into Wade’s embrace, but even that felt too hard. So he sat, tense, and said, “When I’d just been bitten, before I was Spider-Man, my Uncle died because I didn’t want to get involved in a stupid convenience store robbery. Uncle Ben had followed me, and the thief shot him as he escaped. Aunt May tried so hard to convince me that wasn’t my fault, but if I’d used my powers to stop the robber in the first place Uncle Ben wouldn’t have been shot.” 

When Wade didn’t let go, Peter relented enough to rest his head on his shoulder. “I thought I could hide my identity and no one would get hurt, that would keep my friends and my Aunt safe, but the Green Goblin found out and he kidnapped Gwen to get at me because she was my girlfriend and I loved her and that got her killed. Whether she died because my webs caught her wrong and her neck snapped, or if I’d missed and she drowned in the water before I could reach her, she wouldn’t have fucking been there if not for me. And then – “ he gulped, words just spilling from him, “And then the Goblin tried to kill me and when my spider-sense warned me I jumped and he impaled himself on his own glider.”

He reached up to rub his eyes, feeling tears track down his face and soak into Wade’s shirt. “And my best friend was the Goblin’s son, and he went nuts over Spider-Man killing Gwen and his father and…” 

Peter pulled back to look at Wade, wanting him to see it, to understand. All his earlier hesitation was gone now that he was talking. “Wade, I don’t tell you I love you because everyone I love ends up dead and it’s always my fault. I know it sounds stupid when I say it out loud like this but I don’t think I can take it if I’m the reason you die again.”

“But I’m not dead.” Confusion flitted across his face. 

“Oh, Wade.” Peter reached up to cup Wade’s face with his hands. “You die all the fucking time.”

Wade shook his head, a sense of dread starting to fill him. Peter was so earnest, watching him, and Wade knew instinctively he didn’t want Peter to keep talking. He didn’t want to hear this. But he couldn’t stop Peter. “Just revealing that you knew me as Spider-Man and as Peter made you shoot yourself, Wade, and that’s my fault. And then when I was still trying to apologize, still trying to explain, you threw yourself off the roof.”

He remembered that too clearly; Peter standing with his mask in his hands, crying, sobbing out an apology for the lies, for letting Wade go on too long knowing Spider-Man and Peter Parker and not that they were the same person. The sense of betrayal. And how Peter just wouldn’t shut up, as if, if he kept talking he’d say something magic to make everything better and Wade did the only thing he could think to do and shot himself in the head. And he did it again and again, wanting his pain to be visible to Peter. Wanting Peter to hurt. And he’d hurt Peter more than he’d realized. He’d no idea of Peter’s history, no idea what shooting himself over and over would do to Peter.

He’d been so…himself. And fucked everything up before there even was an everything.

He’d broken Spider-Man and he’d never realized it. 

Wade tightened his grip, trying to pull Peter in close again, wanting to hold him and feel safe as memory churned, but Peter didn’t move, and Wade just wasn’t strong enough to drag him close if he didn’t want to be. Peter’s brown eyes searched his face and Wade wished he knew what he was looking for. “I couldn’t stop you,” Peter said. “You just kept dying. It was destroying me. I’d broken you so badly that you just kept killing yourself and I didn’t know what to do until you told me you loved me and then we were falling together and I knew I was going to die.”

Peter leaned in and kissed Wade gently, sweetly, and Wade didn’t know how to respond. Nothing seemed real. This didn’t make any sense. “You picked us off the road and you told me you hated me and then you kissed me and it was beautiful. It was an epiphany, Wade. Everyone I love dies. But you hated me and we were alive. I didn’t have to lose you.” Another brush of Peter’s lips across Wade’s. “You can’t die forever as long as you hate me. And it’s worked!”

Wade stared at Peter in horror.

“I know you don’t hate me anymore,” Peter said, not noticing that Wade was trembling, “but it’s not the same as saying you love me. I can’t say it, Wade. I’m terrified if I do something awful will happen to you. Something unimaginable. And I’ll lose you. I can’t, Wade, I can’t face that.” Peter pulled Wade into a tight hug. “You’re mine, and I’m yours, and I won’t lose you.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said, kissing Wade again. “But please don’t ask me to love you. I don’t know how to do that and keep you alive. I’m scared even saying this much will be a disaster. That something horrible will happen to you.”

Wade licked his lips, hoping he could make Peter understand. “Pet, I can’t die. You know this. My healing abilities brings me back, no matter what. It’s not some sort of superstitious idea about being in love with each other, it’s just my mutation.”

“Wade…” Peter searched his face. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to live without you. You just need to trust me. Okay?”

Feeling helpless, Wade brushed the tears from Peter’s face. Gently, he leaned down and kissed Peter’s lips, feeling Peter smile in respond as he kissed back. Reality splintered around him as Peter put their dishes away. He felt like he was watching a movie where Peter was on screen, talking and doing, and he was the audience unable to affect anything or be heard. Peter cleaning the table. Peter getting ready for a late-morning class. Peter taking down the papers tacked to the wall on the way out.

The door closing.

The apartment swam in his vision. 

Wade sat down on the couch and stared into nothing. He loved Peter. He’d never loved anyone like he loved Peter. Peter, who held him when he was scared, who could match him line for line, who could make him feel like the most amazing man. Peter never talked down to him and never left him behind in a fight and when reality broke and Wade couldn’t handle anything, Peter sat with him and helped him until he could regain a sense of himself again. 

He couldn’t live a life never telling Peter he loved him.

He didn’t think he could handle never hearing it from the man he loved. 

Living without him, though, was terrifying. He couldn’t walk away from Peter. He needed Peter, and Peter needed him.

**

Wade tried. He tried for three days, feeling as if the love he had for Peter was tearing him up faster than he could heal. Three days he tried to make Peter understand how he felt. Tried to convince Peter that nothing was going to be able to kill him, that Peter didn’t have to worry. Didn’t have to ask this of them, until Peter was crying and shouting at him and Wade just apologized and said he’d try because he couldn’t find any other way to calm Peter down.

Nothing made sense anymore.

Peter was insane, and it was all his fault.

On the fourth day, after Peter left for classes, Wade grabbed everything in the apartment that seemed real to him, then left for their other apartment and took everything there that was real, too. 

He made it out of New York City before it all became too much and he shot himself in the forehead.

_*bang*_

Peter threw his bag on the coffee table and went into the kitchen to get a drink. “Wade, I’m home! Wade?” There was no answer. Unconcerned, he checked his cell, realizing it had been hours since Wade’s last text.

“Wade?” he called again, searching through the apartment, noticing most of Wade’s things were missing. His closet was empty. His toothbrush gone from the bathroom. Panic rising in his chest, he slammed through the apartment again, opening every door, spilling everything from the dressers, the cabinets, and finding nothing. Hand in his hair, he stood, gulping in breath in the living room. What happened? Nothing looked like an attack. 

He pulled on his suit and swung across the city to their other apartment, finding it even more empty than the first. Terrified, he collapsed on the couch, frantically texting Wade and getting nothing. He tried calling and there was no answer; left desperate voicemails begging Wade to call him back.

Then he noticed the glint on the table, and with shaking hands and a sinking stomach, webbed the object to him.

It was the key to the collar he wore.

Peter slid from the couch to the floor as he realized Wade had left him. He’d tried again to tell Wade how he felt, and Wade had left him.

He’d wrecked everything, just trying to explain.

Peter collapsed, sobbing, over the table.

_*bang*_

For good measure, Wade shot himself as soon as he knit back together.

_*bang*_

“Hi, this is Peter Parker. May Parker’s nephew? I wanted to talk to someone about having to move my Aunt?”

He sat in his boxers and t-shirt at the kitchen table. He wanted to just drown himself in bed, but he had responsibilities. There were things he couldn’t neglect. Like his Aunt’s medical care.

And he was nothing if not responsible.

“No, no, we’re happy with the facilities, I’m just not going to be able to afford it. Yes, I can hold.”

“Yes, this is Peter Parker? She is? By whom? That’s – yes, that’s weird. Okay, well, I’m glad we don’t have to move her, she loves it there. Yes, thank you, goodbye.”

He stared at his phone. Wade must have made arrangements to pay for his Aunt’s care. It was the only thing that made sense.

Except he’d left, so it made no sense at all.

Befuddled, he pocketed his phone, grabbed a box of cereal, and slumped back to his bed. His Aunt would be okay, so in the end, it didn’t matter why Wade did whatever. Nothing really mattered anymore.

_*bang*_

Spider-sense gave Peter just enough warning to leap for the ceiling as the door to the apartment slammed open. It didn’t give him enough time to land; before he could touch the plaster ceiling he was hanging mid-air, flailing uselessly.

Cable’s hand caught him by his throat. “What did you do to Wade?” 

Peter couldn’t even reach for Cable’s wrist; telekinesis held his arms akimbo. “I didn’t do anything!” he gasped, finding it hard to breath. Cable’s hand squeezed, making dots swim in Peter’s vision.

“Lies,” Cable snarled. “I’m going to rip the truth from your mind. And Peter? This is going to hurt.”

He let the telekinesis go, and then released his hand, and Peter dropped to the floor in a wordless, soundless heap, eyes wide with what only he could see.

Peter was in a coffin with Gwen’s rotting corpse. Her arms enclosed him, the stench of decay filled his senses, and as he tried to get free in sudden, inescapable panic and horror, pieces of her fell loose, covering him. He could feel worms biting into him, and he thrashed, trying to break the coffin, but the wood didn’t crack. Bony fingers circled his neck, and he screamed.

Cable left Peter locked into the mental nightmare as he looked through Peter’s recent memories, searching for the reason he couldn’t find Wade. He frowned as he viewed their recent conversations, and Peter’s attempt to explain his fears and concerns. And no warning from Wade before one day Peter came home to simply find him gone. At least from Peter’s perspective, he really had done nothing.

“Well.” He blew out a long sigh, watching Peter twitch on the floor, mouth open in a soundless scream. His eyes came to rest on the adamantium collar and Deadpool charm. “I might have been hasty in my assumptions.” With another sigh, he removed the nightmare and wiped the memories from before he entered the room.

Spider-sense went haywire and Peter found himself on the ceiling, trying to fire webs from shooters he wasn’t wearing. A moment later the door to the apartment opened carefully and Nathan edged into the room. “It’s me, Peter.”

Warily, Peter dropped to the floor, resisting the urge to step away as Nathan shut the door. He licked his lips. “Why – why is my spider-sense still warning me about you? What do you want?”

An expression flitted across Nathan’s face that Peter didn’t recognize. “I made an assumption that turned out to be inaccurate, and had to correct it. Your mild precognition is reacting to that.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m sorry, even though I undid what I’d done.”

Peter frowned. “You did something in my head.”

“Yes.”

“And now I don’t remember because you undid it.” He wanted to be more upset over the violation, but he was having trouble working up the emotion now that he was past the initial warning. He settled back onto the couch. “So do I get to know why you are here? Otherwise you might as well leave. I’m terrible company right now.”

“I’m looking for Wade. I tried the other apartment first and when I saw his things missing I came to certain conclusions.”

Laughter bubbled out of Peter, hurt and bitter. “He’s not here. Can’t you just, you know…” He waved a hand. “Scan the world for him and find him?”

Nathan’s sigh in the kitchen was loud. “His brain has changed into something I can’t read or sense again. Telepathy on Wade works only intermittently, even for me.”

“Oh.” That meant something, something important, but Peter couldn’t decide what.

“So I came here to find out what happened.” Nathan frowned as he searched the cabinets. “Why do you have no mugs?”

“I don’t know. Wade…” Peter swallowed. “Wade took them when he left.”

“I wonder why,” Nathan mused. “I guess I will make you tea in a bowl.” Another sigh as he couldn’t locate a tea kettle or coffee maker, and in frustration telekinetically heated water to boiling and dropped a tea packet into the bowl. He floated it to Peter as he made another for himself.

“I would ask what happened, but I’ve already read your mind and seen,” Nathan said, sitting down next Peter. “I’m glad you tried to explain things to him, but you two are particularly bad at communicating with each other.”

“Only when it’s something important,” Peter quipped in a tired tone. He sipped at the tea from the bowl. “Can you get to a point? This is exhausting and I have a lot of wallowing in self-pity to do.”

“I’ve looked all the normal places Wade tends to go and I can’t find him. I’m hoping you have ideas.”

“Didn’t you look in my head?”

“I was more concerned with finding out what happened than where he might be.”

“He left me, Nathan,” Peter said, feeling sudden tears. “I don’t know where he is. I did look through New York, but I don’t leave here often. I don’t know where he’s gone. He’s just not here. I’ve tried calling, I’ve tried texting, I tried having the Avengers trace his cell phone and I had to call in favors for that but they can’t find him. I don’t know where he is, I don’t know why he left, I don’t know what the fucking hell I did wrong except try to tell him what he fucking wanted to know, and now I’m drinking tea with his best friend who barely tolerates me and also apparently just waltzed through my head and—argh!” He threw the bowl of tea across the room, vaguely satisfied when it cracked. “I have no idea where he went and I’m – I’m – I miss him.” He looked up at Nathan with pleading in his eyes. “It hurts so damn much. What did I do wrong?”

Nathan lifted the shards of the bowl and fitted everything back together, repairing it. “I don’t think you did something wrong, Peter,” he said finally. “I think Wade isn’t always sane, and you aren’t always emotionally stable. But I also don’t think you should give up on him, or you, or the two of you.”

Peter stared at him. “What?”

“You’ve been the longest I’ve ever seen Wade stay with someone. And I’ve never seen him fight so hard to stay sane. I know how he feels about you. I am, in fact, jealous.” He waited a moment for Peter to comment, continuing when he didn’t. “And I know how you feel about him. Do you want to be without him?”

Peter shook his head. “No.”

“Then why aren’t you doing something to find him?”

The thought filled him with despair, and Nathan winced as he felt Peter’s emotions. “I don’t know what to do, Nathan. I don’t know how to find him.”

“I’ll help you.”

Help. Help might be good. He was pathetic on his own. “But you’re jealous and don’t like me and I’m useless.”

“Yes. However, Wade is still my friend, and you are important to him, and I find you more tolerable than I have perhaps demonstrated. And I believe that, despite the fact that you both are absolutely terrible at relationships, you two are actually good for each other.”

Peter sniffled and threw himself into hugging Nathan. “That’s really nice of you to say.”

After a moment’s hesitation Nathan patted Peter’s back. “So you’ll allow me to help you?”

“Yes.”

“Good, first, you desperately need a shower, and I’m guessing you need food. Go handle the first while I call for delivery.”

Peter nodded and headed into the bathroom, turning on the shower and stripping before stepping into the warm water. He rested his head against the shower wall while the water ran over him. 

Find Wade. 

Figure out what the fuck happened. 

He closed his hand around the Deadpool charm still on his collar and let the shower run.

_*bang*_

Every time he sat up, his first thought was of Peter. When he woke, he thought of Peter. When he got food, he thought of Peter. When he shot himself, he thought of Peter, and when his body healed he thought of Peter.

Out in the woods in the middle of nowhere, he thought of Peter.

He fucking missed Peter and it hurt worse than the bullets.

_*bang*_

He wondered what Peter was doing. Was he still going to classes? Wade hoped so; he made arrangements before he threw his phone in a ravine to have Peter’s tuition auto-deducted from one of his private accounts. Just like he’d made provisions for Aunt May. And the rent, so Peter wouldn’t get thrown out on the street and have nowhere to live.

Breaking up with Peter was proving much harder than he’d anticipated, but he knew this was the best thing he could do for him. He had to stay away. He was hurting Peter, and he couldn’t handle that. 

Wade flung himself off the cliff, and when the ground failed to kill him properly, he shot himself again.

_*bang*_

All he wanted to do was forget about Peter.

_*bang*_

Forget about everything.

_*bang*_


End file.
